Book Review: Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret by Teresa Trent (Swinging Sixties #3)

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: Dot and the rest of the regulars

Cons: The mystery doesn’t work

The Bottom Line:

Characters still fun

But mystery is too light

Disappointing book

Listen, This Secret is Disappointing

I enjoyed the first two books in Teresa Trent’s Swinging Sixties Mysteries.  As a result, I was looking forward to reuniting with the characters again in Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret.  Sadly, this book was very disappointing.

This series has introduced us to Dot Morgan, a young woman in a small Texas town in the 1960’s.  When we first met her, she was just about done with secretarial school.  But she’s finding that keeping a new job with her skills isn’t as easy as she had hoped, especially since she is finding herself involved in murder.

As this book opens, she has been the secretary at KDUD, one of the local radio stations, for a few months now.  If the station would play current hits, like The Beatles, she would absolutely love the job.  Even so, listening to the crooners all day while taking requests isn’t a bad way to spend her days.

Her boss, Holden, who also happens to be the D.J. during the day, is engaged to a beautiful socialite in town.  But all that is threatened when a woman comes into the station one day accusing him of killing his first wife years before.  When that woman is found murdered a couple of days later, Dot can’t help but wonder if there is truth to the rumors.  Is she working for a killer?

This sounds like a great setup for a mystery, right?  Based on the first two books in the series, I was expecting it would be.  But, sadly, it really wasn’t.  Instead of Dot investigating and finding clues to what really happened, we get more soap opera about what is going on with Holden’s relationship (and the fact that he’s a womanizing slimeball), Dot’s cousin’s wedding, and even Dot’s love life.  The mystery takes a back seat to all of this.

Then, when we do reach a climax, it just leaves us with more questions than it answers.

The night D.J. at the station is African-American.  That sets things up for us to see the racism in the country, especially Texas, in 1964.  When this aspect of the book started, I was fully on board.  However, as it went along, there was little in the way of advancement, and it felt like this was turning into a lecture.

Having said all this, I did enjoy catching up with Dot and the other series characters.  There were some interesting developments in their lives, and I liked how their storylines played out throughout the book.

But that isn’t enough to make me recommend Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret.  It’s a shame the mystery was so underdeveloped.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.